


bear it with you

by wjjmwmsn5



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Between Season 3 and 4, Between Seasons/Series, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 21:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12141066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wjjmwmsn5/pseuds/wjjmwmsn5
Summary: John finds James in the dark; they find each other in the light.or, a conversation with john and james in the dark





	bear it with you

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this so long ago and just never put it on ao3 but here it is  
> my tumblr is transpeteparkers if you want to send me a request  
> let me know if you enjoyed!

The dim candlelight was just enough to illuminate a book, though James’s attention wanted to wander off to anything but what he was reading. He had tried to sleep hours ago, but every time he shut his eyes, he pictured the upcoming battle between their amassed army and the English one waiting on Nassau. Around every turn there was a ghostly wisp of a person—long brown hair tied up, pale dress, bullet wound in the forehead. As they neared what he had assured himself would be a victory for the pirates, he couldn’t rid himself of the death of the woman who drove his hatred and the death of the man who had begun it all for him.

James blew out the candle and went over to the bed nearby, sitting in the dark and waiting to find the inspiration to sleep.

There was the sound of a familiar, peculiar footfall; a hobbling. He looked in the darkness toward where he knew the door was at the knock. After a moment, John came in his hut, holding a lantern that cast a little bit of light on him and the area around him. “Are you still awake…?” he asked quietly into the dim room.

“Been awake,” he responded. John’s light moved closer and he set it on the table near the candle. James watched as he sat down on the chair at the desk, so close to James’s bed. “Why aren’t you with Madi?”

The two of them had grown very close. Their lingering glances and casual touches reminded him of the way he and Thomas used to work when they were alone, daring brief kisses in passing if they knew no one was in the same hallway. James could feel a little bit of that between himself and John—at least on his part. There had been nothing physical and nothing said aloud, but at times when he looked at John, he felt something akin to the pull of the sea.

“She’s asleep.” That seemed to be all that he felt was necessary. It was quiet for a moment, but there was some kind of understanding. They were waging a war together soon. Two dangerous stories with the intent of changing history.

“What are you worried about?” James finally asked. There was a lot to be worried about. For John, there was still something to lose. He knew what it was, but it was easier to ask.

“She wants this so badly,” he said. His voice had a different quality when he wasn’t Long John Silver. “I do too, I suppose, but it’s different.”

“How?” James knew that the difference applied to him as well. This war had very much become something they both clung to, although he still felt distrust from Madi. He understood why. He couldn’t fault her for it, but he wished the three of them—the king, queen, and general of the war—could see eye-to-eye the same as he did with John, the same as she did with John.

“England has hurt both of you. It hasn’t hurt me the same. I’m adopting your hurt and using it to lead this war,” John told him. The shadows cast by the lantern were eerie on his face and James couldn’t see his sky blue eyes. He looked so very tired. An unwilling king never stepped into his crown without pain and strife.

James never wanted him to have to use his own pain to fight. If, for the rest of their lives, John could use James’s pain to fight this war, then something would have gone right in his life. He didn’t know John’s past and he didn’t know if he ever would, and perhaps it was riddled with tragedy just as James’s, but it was obviously not the kind of thing John carried around close to his chest. It wasn’t something that haunted him in his dreams.

“That hurt will never go away in you, will it?” John’s voice seemed to get quieter with everything he said, but the night was still and there was nothing to speak over. “It won’t stop. You won’t stop.”

James shrugged. “I can’t forget them, so no, I guess not.”

He didn’t see a reason to stop, though. He didn’t see a reason why this war needed to end until they reached victory, and with the attention they would get and the success they would have, he was sure that victory would not be impossible. It concerned him that John asked about an end to the war before it had even started, but he pushed that feeling back before it sprouted too far.

“I hate that the two of you have that hurt,” John said. “I hate that the two of you bear so much.”

James smiled, confused about where he was going and why he had come from Madi’s hut to his for this conversation. John was a very deliberate person, he knew, and it was hard to believe that he would bother to dress, put on his leg, and come over in the middle of the night for something pointless. It was hard to believe that he had walked in here without knowing what he was going to say, and he ended up asking about the things that James had gone through.

He wasn’t used to speaking about his grief, either, but if there was anyone he could stomach saying their names to, it was John.

“I want to bear it with you,” John added before James had wrapped his head around the words enough to respond.

James raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

John stood up with his lantern and brought it over to little table at James’s bedside. James watched him every step of the way as a frown grew. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled his pant leg up as he began to take off his prosthetic.

“What are you doing?”

John looked back at him, though James could barely see his face since the light was to his back. He took off his jacket and moved closer to him. James’s heart burst to life, fearing what was to come. Suddenly he was a lieutenant in London again, standing in the dining room of his best friend’s house as the dark washed over them and he felt the man’s lips press against his.

John leaned forward and kissed him. James didn’t lean away but he didn’t kiss back at first, until he felt the other man begin to draw away. Then he wrapped an arm around him and kissed him back, keeping him close and remembering everything it was to have someone to hold onto so tightly.

They kissed for a while while no words were necessary, and when it was over they turned out the lantern and moved under his blankets. James’s eyes were closed to the darkness of the night but he felt John’s presence, and felt their hands together. John’s leg was bent and tangled in James’s, and though there wasn’t much physical connection, it was hard to distinguish one from the other. He felt like whatever they were before was from years ago, because it was hard for him to imagine not being a part of John like this again.

He started to drift, not ready to face what lie in his mind or the light of the next morning, but it was so much easier to think about when he knew that John would be there to hold him up.


End file.
